Why Don’t Many Indian MBA Programs Appear in Global Rankings?

Students at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad on its 48th graduation ceremony, March 2013.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

India prides itself on its six-decade-long history of business schools – but the institutions aren’t making a good showing in global rankings.

Only one Indian business school featured in a recent list that ranked 100 international business schools worldwide. The Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad was ranked 60th in the list compiled by the Economist this year, slipping 12 spots from last year and 21 places from its 2013 ranking. India’s tiny Asian neighbors Singapore and Hong Kong each had three schools in the top 100.

The rankings are based on two surveys conducted across 142 business schools during spring this year. One asked the institutions for data such as average salaries of graduating students and GMAT scores of admitted students. The other surveyed current MBA students and recent alumni on the quality of faculty and facilities, diversity of classes and the range of electives, exchange programs and languages on offer, among other things.

The Indian Institute of Management in the western city of Ahmedabad is among the oldest and most prestigious IIMs, a group of autonomous management education and research institutes set up by India’s federal government. It was the second school of its kind to be established in India and counts Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan and Deep Kalra, founder of Indian travel company Makemytrip, as alumni. It is one of only a handful of business schools in India that have been accredited by a global body. In 2008, nearly five decades after it was established, it was recognized by the European Quality Improvement System.

The Economist’s ranking of IIM Ahmedabad indicates a decline in performance in several criteria, particularly in enrolling and employing international students and faculty members, which experts say holds back many of India’s finest colleges including the famed Indian Institutes of Technology.

While the survey showed that all students graduating from IIM Ahmedabad found jobs within three months, faring even better than the Harvard Business School on that parameter, the graduating cohort had an average annual salary of about $33,000, only about a quarter of that reported by the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, which topped the Economist rankings

IIM Ahmedabad dropped from second to sixth place in Asia-Pacific in the latest MBA rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds that rated 200 schools worldwide and grouped them by region. Two other Indian business schools that made it to the top 10 in that list in 2013, lost their place. The Indian Institute of Management in Kolkata descended eight spots to rank 17 and the Indian School of Business fell from sixth best in the region to rank 27.

Abhijit Bhaduri, chief learning officer of outsourcing pioneer Wipro Ltd., said schools fail to consider the work experience of prospective students before they accept them on graduate courses. While at IIM Ahmedabad, incoming students came with an average work experience of less than a couple of years, most top-ranking colleges worldwide enrolled students who had worked for about five years, the Economist rankings showed.

A lack of work experience, coupled with a method of teaching that doesn’t supplement textbook knowledge with hands-on experience, affects the employability of graduates, Mr. Bhaduri said. One survey, conducted across 200-plus Indian business schools, showed that some students who had specialized in finance, didn’t know what IPO (initial public offering) stood for.

Indian business schools still struggle with teaching techniques that go beyond “blanket grading a student on an assignment and de-brief them on basic people interaction and management skills,” Mr. Bhaduri said.